BY SHARI RUDAVSKY

 The picture has become an icon of the Elian saga: federal agents with guns drawn as they remove the boy from the home of his Miami relatives.

 But that striking image by no means depicts a routine child removal.

 Done throughout the country when social workers deem a home unsafe for children, removals are rarely as dramatic -- or as traumatic.

 Child-protective investigators draw sharp distinctions between what they do and what federal agents did to remove Elian Gonzalez from his relatives' Little Havana home.

 ``That removal was not a removal by any stretch of the social work model,'' said Millicent Williams, a senior staff associate with the National Association of Social Workers in Washington, D.C.

 In Broward, of the approximately 1,400 complaints of abuse and neglect that the Broward Sheriff's Office responded to last month, only about 4 percent resulted in children being removed from their homes.

 Drawn guns, a quick strike and a terrified child are not typical of those cases. In most instances, an unarmed social worker in civilian clothes spends a long time talking to the child and the parents, trying to ensure calm.

 The social worker must reassure the child and at the same time strive to make it clear to the parents why the child can't stay in the home.

 ``This is where your training comes in and your professional expertise. You have to be a good salesperson. A lot of it is talking,'' Williams said.

 The Elian case highlights a tension in the field between police and social work methods, social workers say.

 ``It was a police model in the operation with Elian. This could raise questions about what the other model is, and that could be very helpful,'' said Robert Schachter, executive director of the National Association of Social Work's New York chapter.

 A handful of areas have ceded responsibility for child protective investigations to law enforcement personnel. Four county sheriffs in Florida, including Ken Jenne in Broward, have taken over that task from the Florida Department of Children and Families.

 Child protective investigators remain unarmed civilians, and like their Children and Families counterparts, embrace the social work model.

 ``If they take law enforcement, they don't come out with guns waving,'' said DCF spokeswoman Page Jolly. ``They make every attempt to discuss the situation and carry out their duty as defined by law to protect the children in as peaceful a manner as possible.''

 In Manatee County south of Tampa Bay, the first place where the sheriff took responsibility, officers and civilian employees conduct investigations hand-in-hand. The civilians look at the case from the standpoint of whether the children should be in state custody; the police consider whether the parents' actions constitute criminal abuse or neglect.

 ``Law enforcement needs to be there, making their own assessment of whether something is criminal or not,'' said Maj. Connie Shingledecker, Manatee investigative bureau chief. ``If law enforcement is present, you will probably save more lives. It sends a much, much stronger message to people that we're taking this very seriously.''

 In Broward, the nature of the case determines whether law enforcement or child protective investigators take the lead. In more-serious cases, the sheriff office's child protection unit takes a back seat. If it's a safety issue, they come to the fore, said George Atkinson, a member of BSO's child protective investigations unit.

 Decisions to remove children are not made on a snap basis.

 ``It is the most difficult decision our child protective investigators make,'' said Wayne Wallace, a management review specialist with the department. ``We have trained and worked with the work force to make this the last thing you consider, not the first thing you consider.''

 Since July, when the sheriff's office started to take over the job, no families have physically resisted, and Atkinson said he thinks he knows why.

 ``Any time we remove a child, the ultimate goal, if possible, is for the child to be reunited with the family,'' he said.

 Still, the seizure of Elian Gonzalez caused some social workers to express concern that others might misconstrue how they conducted child removals, Wallace said.

 But they didn't dwell on that for long.

 ``Our folks have a tough enough job to do rather than worrying how someone's going to perceive them doing their job in light of recent situations,'' he said.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald